I’m doing some research for a document (that I’ll share of course) re: the various e-commerce/logistics software programs farmers, on-line farmers markets, and food hubs are using. It could be a program you use to sell on-line as an individual farm, CSA, or food hub. I’d appreciate your input - name of the program, cost (if you have it hand - or I can search for it), and any feedback about it. If you’d prefer to chat over phone about it - let me know.
I used to do all of my CSA sales through my website using Jimdo (www.jimdo.com) which is an online website builder/CMS combo. It lets you operate an online store (with order tracking/management) for only 20$/month, which I thought was a good deal. I would accept money through PayPal and Interac e-Transfers (and personal cheques for the technologically challenged/phobic crowd).
I used shopify for sales of storage veg & meat this past fall/winter. $40CAD/mth. Worked pretty well.
Trying farmigo this season to full CSA management & storefront… really expense at 2% of sales (or $150/mth - whichever is higher), but hopeful that it will save me it’s value in admin time. Can report more later once I’ve used it a few months.
Helpful for me to know this - and I look forward to hearing how it goes. I’m trying to pull together some producer evaluations of various platforms. 1. Because i think its useful in its own right but 2. because I’m part of a global network that is launching a new open source platform (Open Food Network) for use by CSAs, direct farm sales, food hubs… This is a global platform cooperative, open source (so you already own it 
) We just finished a round of pilot tests with a group of food hubs/farms in Ontario - and the recommended features are just being coded now. The revised platform should be available in a few weeks. 2% of sales is pretty standard - but what seems to vary is where and if the fees are capped. (OFN for example caps at $100/mo max). Shopify seems to be affordable at the entry level - but to get a reasonable assortment of features, it gets costly. I look forward to your report. (and just for the back of your mind - OFN is launching a subscpription feature for CSAs in the next couple of months.)
Good to know! I sort of wish I’d realized that sooner, having just committed and spent about 5 solid days configuring this thing to work for me and plan to open it tonight. No $ caps with farmigo. I considered Small Farm Central as well, but my main hangup is that it looks so unprofessional for the user when registering. And doesn’t work out a lot cheaper with my member numbers anyways. They both have some limitations of course that cause some weird work-arounds to be necessary, but I suppose that’s inevitable with any standardized program.
panierdachat has a reasonable flat monthly fee and is bilingual-friendly and Canadian.